Question I was wondering what standard practice is: Got a Dell workstation whose hard drive just died. No biggie since the user's docs are redirected on the server and the machine is still under warranty. I was just thinking though, when Dell sends someone out to replace the drive, they will take the old, failed drive with them right?

Like I said the user docs are redirected, but I still had a slight pause when I think about say maybe offline files or OST files that Outlook caches. In this case the drive is still in decent enough shape that the computer "sees" it, and I will run a disk wipe on it just to be safe. But, what to do in situation where the drive is not recognized? Do you just not worry about it? I'm sure some of you have regulations to deal with on data disposal and was wondering what your standard practice is for such a situation. I think this would be especially important if one of our server drives ever needed to be replaced too.

Just wondering if I am being over paranoid and would like to know what procedures others follow. Thanks!

10 Replies

We get a warranty with hard drive retention. We then wipe the drives and then have them shredded by a vendor that provides a certificate with the drive info stating it was physically destroyed. Same process for retired workstations and servers.

If the drive is functional then writing 0s to the drive 3 or more times is generally an acceptable method to destroy data. If it is not functional then you will need to degauss. NIST 800-88 is the required standard for a lot of data destruction. You can review the document requirements here under SP 800-88: http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/PubsSPs.html

Here are some options we provide to protect your data during a HDD replacement.

Thanks for the info Daniel. So, just to make sure I understand, when the Unisys tech comes out to replace the drive, they will ultimately be responsible for destroying it?

The drive does not boot the OS so it sounds like it fits the definition of "Non-functional hard disk drives" and "in the case of non-functional hard disk drives destruction is achieved by shredding or otherwise destroying the devices in a controlled, secure environment." according to the Dell data destruction policy. Thanks again.

Thanks for the info Daniel. So, just to make sure I understand, when the Unisys tech comes out to replace the drive, they will ultimately be responsible for destroying it?

Yes, it will be destroyed if it is not functional. If it is possible to refurbish the drive then it will be wiped, refurbished, and sent back out as a replacement for another customer.

To my knowledge Unisys and the other onsite technician companies we use are not responsible for the actual data destruction. They are bound by contract to adhere to our data handling policies, but they just send the drives back to us.

This person is a verified professional.

As brad suggested you can get the warrenty with harddrive retention. we don't do that however because it costs more. if we have a HD go out (which doesn't happen very often) we keep the old drive and have dell bill us then I usually destroy the HD by cutting the platter with tin snips into little pieces.

0

This topic has been locked by an administrator and is no longer open for commenting.